Look What We Found in the Desert

Aspens, La Sal Loop, La Sal Mountains, Moab, Utah

One of the advantages of taking a photo tour is that you benefit from shooting with someone who knows the area intimately and can point out some great off-the-beaten track locations to experience. When visiting Moab, you are headed into desert country with the great colors of the southwest. Formations rise from the landscape, and are often lit wonderfully with a terrific orange-red glow from the rising or setting sun. A backdrop to these formations is the La Sal Mountain range, and they are often used to offer contrast and scale to the scene. Of all of the times I have been to Moab, I never ventured into the mountains themselves to see what was up there.

Our tour host, Jeff Clow, took us up on the La Sal Loop (which I never knew existed) to shoot the landscape from above. Much to our surprise, we turned a corner in the road and spied these beautiful aspens that were side-lit, making their bark light up. The added bonus was that the snow had not yet melted, and it made a perfect white cover for the ground. It was quite the unexpected scene to find in the middle of desert country.